When working in Access, it may be helpful to change the
field name of an older query so that the report or form is more meaningful. For
example, suppose you have a patient database that includes a Billing Records
table. In all the tables, the field for the patient’s name is Patient Name. For
the monthly billing report, you would like to change that to Insured. To create
the query that you’ll use to create the report, follow these steps:
- Open the Patient Database.
- Click Query under Object and select New.
- Select the Billing Records table and include the
appropriate fields for the report. - Double-click the cell containing the Patient Name
field. - Place the cursor in front of the first letter of the
field name (in this case, P). - Enter the new field name Insured followed by a colon
(:).
The cell should now contain Insured:Patient Name. When the
query is run, the new column heading is Insured
instead of Patient Name. Any new forms or reports created on the basis of the
query will use the new name. You may also use the new field name in any
calculated fields. The field name in the underlying table remains unchanged.
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